Author Archives:

Fish and sentences

Let’s look at a few pages from Stanley Fish’s How to Write a Sentence.

Posted in Writing tools | Leave a comment

Outrunning the Critic

From The 3AM Epiphany by Brian Kiteley, this exercise is called “Outrunning the Critic.” I’ve summarized it here: Write one hundred short sentences about a character in a piece of your fiction. Don’t lift your fingers from your keyboard for all one hundred … Continue reading

Posted in Writing tools | Leave a comment

Global revision

This is an example of global revision as the result of adding material.

Posted in Examples, Writing tools | Leave a comment

Characterization and global revision

From Brian Kiteley’s excellent book The 3A.M. Epiphany, you’ll find this exercise useful.

Posted in Writing tools | Leave a comment

Reflecting on your writing

Contrast the research you did while working on the last two essay assignments. How did differences in the assignments change the way you worked on each of them? Which was more difficult? Why? Which of the classroom activities gave you … Continue reading

Posted in Assignments | Leave a comment

Examples of prose poems

From Great American Prose Poems, an anthology edited by David Lehman, here are some samples.

Posted in Examples | Leave a comment

Example villanelles and sonnets

See this PDF for interesting examples of villanelles. Here are some sonnets.

Posted in Examples | Leave a comment

English 2250 workshopping

This PDF contains the first set of poems we’ll workshop this semester. They’re in the order I received them. This is the second set of poems. Here is the third.

Posted in Assignments | Leave a comment

English 4420 and characterization

Address these questions: How do your characters act in the face of opposition/desires that contrast with their own? Do they plan, try to persuade, take physical action, for example? Describe three events that your central character remembers and that influence … Continue reading

Posted in Writing tools | Leave a comment

Continuing toward characterization

I found this exercise useful when trying to create characters. From Alice LaPlante’s Method and Madness, here is the PDF.

Posted in Writing tools | Leave a comment